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As AI becomes more prevalent in the creative industry, both generating value and raising concerns, six-month-old Pika Labs has introduced its text-to-video AI platform, Pika 1.0, now available to everyone.
Pika 1.0, accessible online, lets users create and edit videos in various styles such as 3D animation, anime, or cinematic, all from simple text prompts. This launch aligns with efforts by other AI video platforms like Stability AI and Runway, which are also offering tools to simplify video creation for businesses and individuals. Recently, Stability created an image-to-video tool on its developer platform.
What can you expect from Pika 1.0?
Pika 1.0, which was announced last month, offers an easy-to-use conversational interface similar to ChatGPT. Users simply input their video idea, and the system generates the requested content. The platform can produce a variety of videos, such as 3D animations, live-action clips, and cinematic footage, and can modify moving elements like a horse or an outfit using text prompts.
During testing, the platform could produce these results in about a minute, though the output was sometimes inconsistent. Some 3-second clips were blurred or misplaced, with distorted or out-of-focus subjects. However, some results were spot-on, like a clip of a rottweiler wearing a Santa cap.
As the platform gains popularity and Pika updates the model, it’s expected that these issues will be resolved. What stands out about Pika 1.0 is the extensive range of customization options. Users can adjust frames per second, aspect ratio, and motion elements such as camera pan, tilt, and zoom.
After producing a video, users can further fine-tune it. The model allows re-generation with the same or new prompts and lets users edit the produced video. Editing features enable modifying specific areas of the clip, changing the aspect ratio, adding extra seconds, or upscaling quality.
The tool’s editing capabilities come from its image-to-video and video-to-video features. Users can even upload their photos or videos to animate them. Imagine turning a static meme into a cinematic video.
Getting Started with Pika 1.0
To create videos with Pika, users need to sign up via Google or Discord on Pika’s web platform. After creating an account, users are added to a waitlist, but the wait is brief. Within minutes, they receive an email granting full access to Pika 1.0. Users can then start making videos by describing their ideas, taking advantage of the platform’s varied styles.
Pika Labs CEO, Demi Guo, emphasized that creating high-quality content is often difficult and expensive. Pika aims to empower everyone, from home users to film professionals, with tools to produce high-quality videos. The vision is to enable anyone to direct their stories and nurture the creator within us all.
Competition in AI Video Creation
Pika has raised $55 million in funding and is valued at nearly $200 million. Nonetheless, they face competition from established, well-funded companies like Adobe, Runway, and Stability AI. Stability recently added its Stable Video Diffusion model to its developer platform, Runway is known for adding motion to memes, and Adobe is exploring video upscaling and object editing in its Creative Cloud suite. Adobe has also reportedly acquired Rephrase AI to enhance its video-generation capabilities.